The intention of the Dependent Care FSA is to collect tax-advantaged dollars to pay for child and dependent care.
The purpose of the change in the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Relief Act of 2020 was to help taxpayers who suddenly did not have access to child care because of COVID to carry over unpayable amounts in your FSA from 2020 to 2021. This was updated to also allow similar carry over from 2021 to 2022.
It was not the purpose of the Act to allow you to move contributions around (that you have already spent) to maximize your Dependent Care Credit..
So, have you already spent the $5,000 from the FSA on dependent care in 2021? Then I think you ought to report it that way. This is what would be in your employer's FSA records and the care provider's records, right?
It's true that you report the contributions to the FSA (the amount in box 10 in the W-2) on line 12 of the 2441, and then on line 14, you subtract the amount carried over to next year back out so that you end up on lines 14-26 with all zeroes (which lets you apply all of the $16,000 to the Dependent Care Credit according to the form), but I don't know if this would survive the audit when the auditor notices that you had already spent the $5,000 on dependent care and then decided not to report it that way.
To me this is an unknown situation created by many law changes within a short timeframe, creating unforeseen situations which the IRS perhaps has not addressed. So I am not advising you to do it, but if you do, document everything and go into it with open eyes in case of an audit.
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